


Lean In (let me tell you a secret)

by babyturtle (orphan_account)



Series: my life story's buried behind me [1]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Background Relationships, Backstory, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/babyturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>people are never who they say and even less who you think (and they're all <i>killers</i> now). And you can always, always blame your parents. </p><p>An exploration of potential character backstories and driving motivations for Laurel, Connor, Wes and Michaela.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lean In (let me tell you a secret)

Laurel is _quiet_. She has always been quiet. It’s pointless talking when your dad’s dead and your mom’s an alcoholic (aren't all rich mothers?), because there was no one to listen. That's the first rule of having money: no one really listens to _you_. (no one really listens to you ever but Laurel doesn't know that yet). 

It’s not just that though – she’s always been shy. She’s never had a boyfriend that loved her. She has had sex with seventeen people, thirteen of which were boys.

She’d go outside and smoke during seventh period – health – because it was all about drugs and alcohol and for once in her life, Laurel didn’t want to listen.

She liked the way smoking decreased her appetite. Being quiet was okay if you were pretty. You can be quirky – if you’re sexy, or cute, or talented sexually.) Laurel - Laurel wanted to be pretty, liked to be liked. Noticed. It's why she wouldn't let Frank go. 

There are people who listen to Laurel, now.

People _want_ to listen.

It’s a new feeling.

She wishes she needed people more. If so, she might appreciate it more.  

 

* * *

 

Connor is _manipulative_.

Connor is sexual. Connor can’t admit his feelings. Connor can’t commit. Connor was a stripper with daddy issues. Connor knows a thing or two about families that reject you.

(Connor also knows a thing or two about being the dork in high school).

Connor wants to be shallow but he’s missed it by a mile and hit intense. Connor wants to be casual so badly and he _always screws it up._

His third (fourth, fifth, eighteenth, who's counting?) stepdad’s favorite sayings: “faggot” and “screw up”. Connor's mom was always there and that's all he could say because he she wasn't necessarily ever there for him. You can love people you don’t like, he learns too young (fifteen with stepdad number seven) and the hardest thing you’ll ever do is stop liking the people you loved first.

Might as well stop loving people and stick to the liking.

But Connor even screws that up.

(Connor’s always had panic attacks and neither of his parents has really known. His mom saw him, once, before he was going to take the PSAT and gave him advice for the first time: you’ll go far if people don’t know you’re weak.

He ends up a Merit Scholar semi-finalist and doesn’t get any further. His mom is disappointed. He knows he could have worked harder.

His mom is a senator and the breadwinner and left raising Connor up to her first husband for connor's formative years (she never married Connor's father, never told him who) and it always chaffed. He looked at his son and saw his failures, saw a passive, empathetic Italian young man – sexism from a bygone era never fully eradicated – and saw himself failing as the Head of the Family.)

If Connor sleeps alone more often than not, it’s because he’s got to work until he can’t anymore because that’s what people need from him.   

It’s what he’s used to: Connor hates when he needs people, but doesn’t mind when they need him.

 

* * *

 

Michaela is _controlling_.

She has seven siblings and she’s the oldest. She’s a twin, but they don’t talk. Anymore. 

She had a test, one night, when she was babysitting her brothers and sisters and asked him to help out because she had a test tomorrow. Everyone is outside playing – something that looks messy and violent.

AP Art History. Midterm.

Payne, the youngest, four when Michaela is seventeen, walks out into the middle of the street and gets hit by a car.

He dies. There’s a lot of blood. (no one cleans it for days. It sits on the street and stains the sidewalk until Michaela, hands shaking wildly, leaves the funeral  early to scrub it away). Michaela got a C on her test that week and didn't come home until ten because she’d look out the window and see the blood after she scrubbed it away.

She misses the burial because she’s retaking the midterm. She gets an A-.)

Michaela needs control because she knows what sacrifice means and she knows what it does if the sacrifice isn’t worth it and so she’s spending every second of her life outrunning regret.

She’s scheduling herself into preparing for all things, for following the course of her life interrupted for guaranteeing that her sacrifice will be worth it.  

Her sacrifice will be worth. She’s engineered this situation and she’ll be in control of it if it kills her.

She’s only got to suppress everything else.

 

* * *

 

Wes Gibbons is _lost_.

(he’s finding himself now)

Wes was always the dreamy kid – the average, dreamy kid. He’d dated casually, had parents who loved him and been an only child.

His parents couldn’t wait to support any dreams Wes had.

He’d never been passionate about anything before (except maybe his girlfriend, May or maybe his girlfriend Carla or Jenny or -)

He played video games. He joined leadership. It was expected. He thought of the problems of the world and thought that life sucked for a lot of people.

He was middle class and he was average. He was happy, his dad was happy, and they both though Ms. Gibbins was happy until she killed herself. 

“Unusually creative, lacks dedication.” reads Wes's report card. 

A average. Great on paper, needing focus. Close, but no dice.

Wes applied to law school almost on a whim (and started caring when he slept with his criminal studies professor, who had legs like you’d never seen, and a dedication to teaching through inspiration.

She’d dumped him and he’d shrugged and showed up, with no idea what he was doing, in Annalise Keating’s class. He's decided, finally, to be passionate about something. It's what his mom wanted. He was waitlist, but he'll get his footing fast. He is a bright kid. He's an optimist, too, an idealist. Something he gets from his mom. 

She kills herself because she looked out at the world and only saw pain and Wes is going to change that.  

* * *

 

You think you know people.

This isn’t true.

All these people are murderers. None of them are bad people. None of them are inverses, but they reflect each other. Everyone has secrets. Secrets are power, when everyone likes to pretend it’s hard work.

You’ve got to play the game – learn when not to talk.

No one is who you think.

(They are all murderers.)

How much do you really know about their friends?  
They are all murderers.

How flawed are your friends? How deeply?

(They are all murderers.)

Someone is dead. Four people are responsible.

Four people weren’t murderers.

Four people are murderers now.

Are they the same people? How?

Did you really ever know them?

They are all

 

 

murderers. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so mostly unbeta'd but I had to write something because I just really need to know - what made these characters who they are? Like, I'm desperate for some backstory and this was my solution. I don't know - what do you guys see for these four characters? How'd you imagine it?
> 
> I was sort of thinking of expanding on this (specifically Michaela, she's kind of my favorite right now she's just all adorable worked up and I want to give her a warm burrito hug (connor too after last episode) and she's reached Hermione levels of prioritizing.


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